Finding new uses for the old Kinect

Microsoft has announced new functionality for gesture controls coming to the Kinect for Windows SDK, while also reigniting our imagination about the future of Kinect Fusion.

First up, Fusion: at TechFest this week in Redmond, Wash., Microsoft talked up the 3D scanning project that's due in a future SDK update.

Kinect Fusion, the company explained in a blog post, uses the sensor's depth data to create detailed 3D models by scanning real-world objects or surroundings. A user simply moves the Kinect sensor around the object to scan it from all angles, and the sensor uses "hundreds or even thousands of frames" to construct its models.

It was announced back in November, but Redmond's readiness to talk about its features now signals an SDK update - for Windows, by the way - can't be far off.

Pinch-to-zoom coming soon

"The amazing thing about this solution is how you can take an off-the-shelf Kinect for Windows sensor and create 3D models rapidly," Shahram Izadi, Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research Cambridge, said in the post.

"Normally when you think of Kinect, you think of a static sensor in a living room. But with Kinect Fusion, we allow the user to hold the camera, explore their space, and rapidly scan the world around them."